


Face Like A Blessing

by myownremedy



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Dr. Faustus quotes, Fake Interviews, Fix-It, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 11:11:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownremedy/pseuds/myownremedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It seems right, that Eduardo is the first face of Facebook, covered in binary and coded in with loving care.</i><br/> </p><p><i>Or</i>, the AU where Mark makes Eduardo's face (instead of Al Pacino's) the Facebook's logo in a grand gesture, and Eduardo doesn't know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Face Like A Blessing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [popsongnation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsongnation/gifts).



>   
>  
> 
> Title from Miguel De Cervantes, best known for writing _Don Quijote de la Mancha._  
>  Unbeta'd.

_"He had a face like a blessing."_

\-- Miguel De Cervantes

*

When Erica dumps Mark, it doesn’t feel like freedom until he says “Eduardo, I need you”

And Eduardo, all big hair and soft eyes, says, very seriously: “I’m here for you.”

Mark is impatient, doesn’t understand this through the haze of anger and beer and resentment and says, “No, I need the algorithm.”

He regrets it, later, when Eduardo claps him on the back after the board hearing, says _why do you get all the girls to hate us_ and Mark thinks, with a sense of dawning urgency, _I don’t want a girl._

 

He doesn’t know how to explain this or even mention this to Eduardo, and then it suddenly doesn’t matter because the Winklevoss are talking to him about their website and he sees something great, something with potential, something that keeps him up at night.

He tells Eduardo about it at Caribbean night, when his breath comes out in white plumes and Eduardo halting says _I can’t feel my legs._

He tells Mark that he was punched by the Phoenix and Mark remembers telling Erica about the bus full of girls, thinks of Eduardo being steadily taken away from him and panics, watches Eduardo’s face settle into resignation and wonders about friendship and then something more and how on earth anyone is supposed to communicate that.

 

It makes sense, later, when Dustin asks about Stephanie Attis and Mark thinks _relationship status_ with the same sense of urgency he feels about thefacebook and Eduardo, and he wonders if he could combine them.

He tells Eduardo later, asks him to be his CFO and hopes for Eduardo’s soft eyes and pleased expression, is ridiculously rewarded by Eduardo’s awe-struck expression. He says _you don’t know what this will mean to my father_ and Mark says, easily, _sure I do_ and wonders how he can communicate why he’s doing this, why he wants Eduardo as CFO: because Eduardo is the best, but also because he wants Eduardo in anyway he can have him.

*

Facebook goes live and Mark becomes the biggest thing on campus; he ignores it, focuses on coding and server space and thinks about Eduardo and _connections_ and _openness_ with a sort of stilted urgency that makes him bite his lip but do nothing, painfully aware of everything and still unable to act.

Eduardo is so excited about Christy wanting to go out to drinks and Mark nods and smiles with him, focuses on the fact that Eduardo is excited that Christy used _facebook me_ and tries not to hate Christy for her gender and being attractive and basically being what Eduardo wants, which is also not Mark, which is the main problem.

 

But then there’s Alice, looking at him with sweet eyes and Mark goes along with it, lets her push him against the wall in the bathroom stall and kiss him messily, feels himself respond with the same stilted urgency coursing through his veins.

He’s not going to say no to sex, doesn’t push her away when she wraps her lips around his cock and focuses on the feeling of her mouth and the ridiculous gasping Eduardo is making next door, lets himself come when Eduardo makes a long, high pitched whine.

 

He doesn’t want Alice, though, not like Eduardo wants Christy and when Eduardo smiles at him, big and bright, Mark smiles back and thinks, _we have to expand_.

*

When they meet Sean Parker and Eduardo is upset for no good reason, Mark ignores him and focuses on Sean, tries not to take Eduardo dating Christy personally and makes everything _thefacebook_ and ignores Eduardo.

But then Sean says drop the ‘the’ and come out to California and Mark reconsiders, thinks about Eduardo falling asleep on his bed in the Kirkland suite, thinks about Eduardo wrapping a hand around the back of Mark’s neck to get him to look at something, thinks about California and the yawning distance that will be between them.

He feels the burning in his blood, the need to do something because even if Eduardo has Christy and Mark has nothing, Eduardo has to know, should know by now.

It’s stupid, as most displays of emotion Mark makes are, but he calls up their graphic designer, Andrew, and talks to him about faces, gives him a picture of Eduardo and asks if he can design a logo using this picture.

Andrew doesn’t even blink, and a week later there it is. It seems right, that Eduardo is the first face of Facebook, covered in binary and coded in with loving care.

 

Eduardo doesn’t notice, even though Mark thinks it’s obvious and he gets a lot of flack for it from Dustin and Chris, and then one thing leads to another and Eduardo is yelling at him, saying _you pretentious douchebag_ and Mark thinks it’s better this way, to always leave Eduardo without anything real between them then to delude himself that he had a chance.

Eduardo’s face is so raw, though, that Mark looks down at his _CEO, bitch_ business card and tries not to feel the yawning emptiness inside of it, tries to remind him this was the best thing for the company, tries not to dwell on the fact that he’s lost Eduardo forever.

*

In the years leading up to the depositions, Mark will look at Eduardo’s face, staring out from Facebook’s banner, and wonder how it all went wrong.

He’s older now, no longer a stupid nineteen year old and he has identified, slowly, the threads of it all – jealousy, betrayal, abandonment, anger, lust, pride, and love. He knows what he did was fucked up but he clings to his justification with a sense of desperation, reminds himself that it was business and his feelings for Eduardo had nothing to do with it.

He does not explore this, does not wonder if it is true; he makes it true, makes it his history and watches as Facebook grows and grows and grows.

 

When the depositions happen, Mark spends most of his time thinking about truth and about lies, watches Eduardo stonily from across the table and wants to throw his pen at him, wants to write _YOUR FACE IS ON MY WEBSITE, IDIOT_ in large letters on his legal pad and fold it into a paper airplane, send it flying across the polished table in a way befitting the immaturity Eduardo sees him with.

Eduardo says _I was your only friend. You had one friend_ and Mark feels something inside him break, tries not to think about it but feels the massive betrayal, the yawning gap between them and wonders, again, how it came to this.

It’s not strictly true, that Eduardo was his only friend but Mark knows that he wanted Eduardo to be so much more, and that will never happen now, and he has been clinging to that delusion with the hope of a drowning man.

It’s appallingly cruel to have it dragged out from under him – but it’s no less then what he deserves. It was appallingly cruel, what he did to Eduardo. It’s Mark’s fault, he thinks, but Eduardo’s too, and it’s funny to him that they’re together in blame if not in anything else.

 

They settle and Marylin sidles over to Mark after the depositions are done, perches on the table and says, “It’s Eduardo’s face, isn’t it?” and Mark doesn’t even have to ask.

“Yes,” he admits, watches her carefully and wonders why people’s judgment – especially women’s judgment – is still so important to him.

“Does he know?”

“No,” Mark keeps it short, tries to keep his voice short but Marylin’s face softens and she sighs, presses her lips together in thought.

“You should take it down,” he knows this and it still hurts, because that’s the last part of Eduardo he has, that’s the last time Eduardo will stare at him like a model without any resentment or anger. But she’s right, Mark knows that, and he nods at her, slowly.

“I’m putting him back on the masthead,” he says halting. “Where he belongs.”

Marylin looks at him with so much softness that he thinks she must know; he feels his ears go red and looks away, scowling down at his keyboard.

*

They change the logo after the depositions – Mark thinks Andrew’s face falls when he gets the request – and everyone notices, everyone asks, and Chris tells Mark that it’s a good idea for him to do an interview, to make him more likeable after this legal business.

Mark stumbles through it; he doesn’t think it goes well and Chris thinks it goes great.

*

“Why did you call it Facebook? Is there something about faces?”

“I believe faces are very important, are very beautiful…There are two kinds of beauty in faces, one is very obvious and one is hidden. You have to look for it, but you will always find it, will always find something beautiful about a person’s face if you look long enough. And I think your face is how you present yourself to the world, for better or worse…I wanted to celebrate that, the hidden and obvious beauty, the presentation of one’s self, while trying to make the world more open, a place where communication doesn’t have to be so hard. What I like most about Facebook is it’s ability to connect people, to make life easier…It’s a great concept and I can only thank the public for allowing it to grow as fast as it has.”

“So I’m guessing that’s why your job description is ‘Making the world more open and connected.’ It seems like a fitting description, after hearing your explanation.”

“Thank you.”

“Mark, tell us about the old logo and the new one. There are rumors that it’s your face and rumors that it’s not; it’s actually a substantial argument in the internet community. Care to shed some light?”

“The first ‘face’ of Facebook is actually the face of Eduardo Saverin, Facebook’s co-founder and first CFO…Facebook wouldn’t have happened without him and I thought it was fitting to pay homage, to pay tribute, to him in that way. It’s funny because he doesn’t know; he never realized the face on the homepage was his.”

“And why the change?”

“Because Facebook isn’t just about myself and my colleagues anymore; it’s about everyone. It’s about the world, about a global community. And I don’t want to have just one face on our website; that seems rather limiting. So I decided to go with a simpler logo, something more elegant and less visually confusing…I think it makes the site more cohesive as a whole, even if it’s only a visual level.”

“What does Saverin think of this?”

“He actually left the company in 2004 and lives in Singapore now…I haven’t asked him, since he’s very busy and this logo just went live. I hope he likes it, hope he doesn’t mind the face being replaced…I don’t think he’ll mind, since he never knew it was his face in the first place.”

*

He gets the call after the interview gets published; it’s late at night and Eduardo sounds very upset on the phone.

“Mark!”

“Hi,” he says, doesn’t know what else to say, thought they had a no contact clause in their settlement and feels absurdly grateful that Eduardo is talking to him again, even if it’s just to yell at him.

“My face was the logo? That was _my face?_ ”

“Yes.”

“Why?!” Eduardo explodes; Mark wonders what he looks like, if he’s kicking the wall of his apartment yet, if he’s sitting down on the bed and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“I thought it was obvious. How did you not recognize your own face?”

“I never – I never looked at it very closely. The logo, I mean.” Eduardo admits and Mark shares the silence with him, doesn’t make fun or judge him, savors the sound of Eduardo’s breathing.

“Why my face, Mark?” Eduardo asks again, and it’s 2:24 am and Mark has never had a filter, will not start now.

“ _‘Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,_  
_And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?_  
_Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss._  
_Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!_  
_Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.’_ ”

He hangs up afterwards, amazed by his own daring; he doesn’t want to deal with Eduardo incredulity and anger at his inability to give a straight answer, even though Mark thinks what he said was pretty damn clear and if Eduardo doesn’t understand after that, there’s no hope for him.

*

Eduardo shows up the day after next, striding into the Facebook office in a way eerily reminiscent of 2004 and Mark watches him coming with a sense of growing dread, wonders if he’ll have to call security, wonders what he’s supposed to do.

But Eduardo is calm – angry-calm, Mark recognizes, the sort of forced calm that Eduardo has, that he’s inherited from his father.

He strides into Mark’s office, shuts the door, and Mark stares up at him, notices Chris and Dustin watching them nervously through the window and tries not to care.

Eduardo looks good, even if his hair is still slicked back like he’s in the mafia; he’s wearing a suit again, no surprise and he’s golden-tan, with dark eyes and the same beautiful mouth.

Eduardo’s face is so beautiful, so obviously beautiful that Mark wonders how he ever missed it; he was nineteen and stupid and in love, he supposes.

“Mark,” Eduardo says with his forced-calm, with his forced-control, “why did you compare me to Helen of Troy?”

“Eduardo,” Mark says tiredly, rubbing his face with one hand, “if you don’t know by now I have no idea how to explain it to you.”

“You’re serious right now,” Eduardo sounds so incredulous that Mark raises an eyebrow at him. “You meant it. You mean it.”

“I always have.”

“For how long?” Eduardo’s voice is shading towards dangerous and Mark swallows hard.

“Since the night I broke up with Erica.”

Eduardo’s face is doing something complicated and Mark struggles to explain. “Look, Wardo – Eduardo – I was an idiot about a lot of things. I shouldn’t have done that too you. I should have communicated. I should have made myself clear. I know it’s too late now. But I’m sorry, and I never meant it as anything personal; I understand, though, that there was no way for you to know that.”

“It was a shitty thing to do,” Eduardo says through tight lips and Mark nods.

“It was,” he agrees. “You didn’t deserve that and I’m sorry.”

Eduardo makes an explosive gesture, face working furiously and Mark watches him warily.

“You!” He bursts out finally. “Mark. You just…Completely ridiculous! God fucking damnit, Mark, I thought everything was settled between us – not over, not fixed, but _done –_ and then you go and pull this!”

“I…I didn’t mean it like that,” Mark tells him, tries to inject as much honesty into his voice as possible. “It was an interview. It wasn’t…I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Well then how did you mean it?” Eduardo demands. “Do you not care about me anymore because you gave me money? Is that why you took my face down?”

“No! No,” Mark says, more calmly. “I took it down because Marylin – one of my lawyers – told me too. I figured you probably wouldn’t appreciate it. I don’t…Eduardo, I was trying to do the right thing.” Eduardo is staring at him, looking unconvinced, so Mark adds, desperate: “Of course I still care about you. I never stopped.”

“ _Mark_ ,” Eduardo breathes out, and then he strides forward, cups Mark’s face with one hand and kisses him gently, pressing his lips against Mark’s with enough hesitation that Mark kisses him back, tugs him forward by his tie and spreads his legs so Eduardo fits between them.

“Fuck,” Mark says when they break apart; they’re both panting.

“This doesn’t fix it,” Eduardo tells him, even as he drags his fingers through Mark’s curls. “This doesn’t fix _us_.”

“I know,” Mark tells him, drags him down for another kiss, nips at Eduardo’s lips until they part and Mark can taste him. “But I want to try.”

“Yeah,” Eduardo breathes, moves to kiss the line of Mark’s jaw and Mark muffles a whimper.

* 

Later, when they’re at Mark’s house and tangled together, Mark wraps a hand around Eduardo’s hip and looks down at him, sees how Eduardo is half asleep and still so beautiful, even when he’s fucked out and exhausted, bruises painting lines on his golden skin and cum drying on his thighs.

 “Do you have all of _Dr. Faustus_ memorized?” Eduardo mumbles, eyes still closed, and Mark presses a kiss to his shoulder.

“Some of it,” he admits. “I liked it a lot.”

“I’ll have to reread it,” Eduardo’s slurring now and Mark feels his lips curl up, feels something squeeze his heart, his breath short and painful.

“ _‘O, thou art fairer than the evening air_  
_Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;_  
_Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter_  
_When he appear'd to hapless Semele;_  
_More lovely than the monarch of the sky_  
_In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;_  
_And none but thou shalt be my paramour!’_ ” He recites, quiet, against Eduardo’s skin, and Eduardo’s lips curl up, but he’s mostly asleep, and Mark thinks that’s ok; he has to work up to saying those treacherous three words somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> The lines Mark quotes to Eduardo are from _Dr. Faustus,_ cause I'm pretentious like that I guess. You can find the poem that is quoted [here](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-face-that-launch-d-a-thousand-ships).  
> [Here](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9x5waj0IR1qjudjpo1_1280.jpg) is some art! [Here](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9x5waj0IR1qjudjpo2_400.jpg) is what the art is based on.  
>  What even is this ending I'm really sorry about this.  
> Anyway this fic came to me at 1 am and I delayed writing it for a bit so, I hope it makes sense. Thanks for reading! <3
> 
> visit me on [tumblr!](http://marnz.tumblr.com/) prompts welcome.


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